


Why Are There Cows?

by orphan_account



Series: Who's The Oldest? [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batkids Age Reversal, Cows, Damian is there for a second, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Jason Todd is a good brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26571751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Gotham has weird villains. That’s just a fact. There are the weird but generally harmless ones, like Condiment… Queen (Prince? King?), but even the more famous, dangerous ones are weird. The Riddler, for example, just lets them go if they solve his puzzle. It’s like fighting his high school (middle school?) guidance counselor but thirty years younger and fifty times more psychopathic.So an idiot dressed as a cow? Not that strange.Whatisa little unusual is that he has literal cows.-----Dick doesn't know when to ask for help. Jason (correctly) thinks his brother is an idiot.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Who's The Oldest? [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921234
Comments: 13
Kudos: 167





	Why Are There Cows?

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya! I've had this sitting around for a bit now and just finished editing. Or at least finished editing enough to satisfy my brain. So if you find any mistakes I missed, please don't be afraid to point them out! Advice/Critiscm is always welcomed :D 
> 
> TW: Vague Head Injuries (and very vague mentions of violence + death), Temporary Memory Loss/Confusion, Cursing. If you ever hurt your head please go to the doctor.

God fucking dammit, Dick hates cows. 

He’d been four (five?) the first time he met a cow; A day stop in the outskirts of Lucknow plus busy adults and an adventurous toddler with advanced motor skills ended up equaling one very broken foot. When he was seven he was half-trampled in a stampede after a tent pole snapped (or did a tree fall?) and startled a nearby herd of cattle. At twelve he busted three ribs protecting a child from a bull, and at fourteen one of Clark’s cows ripped some of his hair out trying to play with his hat. The tabloids on his seventeenth (sixteenth?) birthdays were filled with images of him (and Bruce’s four hundred dollar suit) covered in mud, the product of antsy cattle at a charity fair three days prior. Last year he had to explain to Alfred why the man found a cow ripping up the garden. Two months (weeks?) ago that very same cow ate the thirteen-page report Bruce had made him painstakingly write by hand. It’s easy to say that cows aren’t his favorite animals. 

Which brings him to today. 

Gotham has weird villains. That’s just a fact. There are the weird but generally harmless ones, like Condiment… Queen (Prince? King?), but even the more famous, dangerous ones are weird. The Riddler, for example, just lets them go if they solve his puzzle. It’s like fighting his high school (middle school?) guidance counselor but thirty years younger and fifty times more psychopathic. 

So an idiot dressed as a cow? Not that strange. 

What _is_ a little unusual is that he has literal cows.

There’s currently fifty-seven cows roaming throughout Gotham.

Oh, did he say roaming? He means rampaging. Because these are murder cows. Under mind-control.

Controlled by the guy standing on top of a horse, wearing a cow romper. 

“Fuck.” He rolled out of the way of the charging cattle, ignoring as his nausea increases tenfold. Standing up, he kept an eye on the three (six? They keep doubling.) to his left and the four on his right as his hand raised to his ear. “Can someone _please_ come knock this guy out?”

“Sorry, Goldie, we're a little busy here- _Holy shit!_ Guys! A cow just jumped onto the roof of a building!”

“Tt, a normal bovine can jump five feet easily, Hood. These enhanced creatures are truly majestic.” 

“Majestic?! I can’t believe you’re actually enj- What the hell are you two doing. No! GET OFF THE FUCKING- I gotta go.” 

Damian sighs over the line. “Just because I can appreciate the amazing capabilities of these animals does not mean I’m enjoying wrangling them. Batman, Black Bat, and I are unavailable as well. A large group of the cattle has cornered some children.” Before Dick can respond he hears the tell-tale click of Damian disconnecting. Guess the job is for him. Hooray. 

His brain feels like it’s being stuffed with cotton as he dodges cows, slowly injecting each with a tranquilizer. He’d been fighting Killer Croc (or had it been Ivy?) when Babs sent out the call. He hadn’t noticed the crocodile (vine?) sneaking up on him until he was being picked up and slammed into the ground. 

That had been twenty (thirty? forty?) minutes ago. His back and headache are throbbing in sync, beating out their own tune as his neck struggles against the heaviness of his head. Limbs that usually move with ease feel weighed down like he’s swimming under pressure only found in the depths of Atlantis. Weird, he’s pretty sure he just hit his head and back, his arms and legs should be fine. Maybe Tim updated his suit? His brother loves to do surprise updates. Half of the kid’s blackmail material is from accidents caused in their confusion. That and his pranks. He’s not sure how all of Bruce’s kids love pranks. It seems very unlikely statistically. 

Maybe it’s caused by having so many siblings? He only started pulling pranks when he met the Titans, and they are like his siblings. Or, they were. He’s gone to a lot of funerals. His parents, his aunt, and his cousin. Garth. Wally. Donna. Jason. Wait, no. He didn’t go to Jason’s funeral. Why didn’t he go to Jason’s funeral? Was he really that bad of a brother? So that’s why Bruce was so angry. That makes more sense. 

He’s not sure what it makes more sense than. What did he think Bruce was mad at him for before? Is Bruce mad at him? What did he do? He’s been busy with college, he couldn’t have messed up. Oh, that’s probably why he's mad at him. Dick’s been too busy studying for his midterms. He should spend more time with his family. When was the last time he took Tim or Steph out to eat? It’s so strange that they’re already going into highschool. Or college? He can’t remember if his siblings are entering high school or college, such an amazing big brother. Sometimes he hates being the oldest, not that, that’s not his fault, too. He should have stayed and helped train Jason instead of running off. Maybe then he’d be alive. 

But Jason _is_ alive. 

Right? Maybe? 

Damn, his head hurts. What was he doing again?

Oh. The cow guy. With the murder cows. Dressed in a cow romper. Standing on a horse. 

“Hi there!” He says, walking towards the cow guy. His black-and-white covered head whips around to look at Dick. “Will you stop the cows if I ask nicely?” 

He seems to ponder this for a moment. “I would say nothing,” the man cautiously answers, sitting down on his horse. It’s quite a big horse, taller than Dick. He likes horses. They’re more fun than cows. 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“What did you ask?” 

Wow, memory troubles seem to be the theme of the day. “Can you stop the cows?” he repeats, putting his escrima sticks in the holsters on his back. Cow guy seems friendly enough. 

“I don’t know how.”

“Oh.” That complicates matters. 

“Do you?” 

Dick’s brow furrows. “Do I know how to stop the cows?” Why would Dick be asking him if he knew how to stop the cows? 

“Yeah.” 

“No.”

“Did you ever?”

“I don’t think so?” His skull feels like it’s shrinking as his brain’s expanding. Maybe he did know? Is that why the rest of the family isn’t here? How many siblings does he have again? 

“That’s true,” the guy admits, spinning the reins of the horse like a helicopter’s blade. Bruce has a helicopter. 

They’ve been inching towards each other, and Dick can see a dark hairline under the hood. “What?” 

Cow guy waves away his question. “Do you know who my enemy is?” 

Uh. Well he likes cows, right? Tapping his fingers against his leg, he guesses. “Butchers? Slaughterhouses?” 

“No!” The man shrieks, startling the horse. There’s a lull in the conversation as they both stare at it. “My enemy is God.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“Of course you don’t!” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, grinding his foot down. Some people poke their heads out of a shop behind the horse and he waves them back inside. Why did he do that? “Can you help me understand?” 

“Yes,” he answers, sounding smug. There are less than four feet of space between them. “but I’m not going to.” 

Oh. That’s disappointing. What was he supposed to be doing again?

As he reaches up to press against his temple, a flash of black and white catches his eye. Right. The cows.

“You’re the one controlling the cows, right?” 

“It’s my parent’s fault!” the man exclaims, gesturing towards the street around them. It’s mostly abandoned. Dick’s not sure where in Gotham they are, the street sign is too blurry to read.

“Oh...” he says, shifting. Parent’s aren’t a very fun subject for any of the Bats. “How so?” 

“Well, I wouldn’t be with my current family if I wasn’t an orphan!” Dick can relate to that. Except, his new family turned him into a vigilante-superhero, not a man soon to be charged with fourteen counts of murder via possessed cow. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he offers, hoping it sounds genuine. 

“He died and after that people burned my stuff… because, ‘Since the old man is DEAD, we can do anything to his family’.” 

“That’s horrible,” he says and this time it is genuine. His head has to tilt back to look the man in the face. There are tears in cow guy’s eyes. 

He sniffles, wiping his nose. “You think so?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Thank you. You are sweet too.”

“Thanks?” 

The guy kicks his horse into a gallop, zipping past Dick and down the street. He should probably chase after him, but he just slowly blinks. His feet feel glued to the floor, helpful as the ground rocks back and forth. It feels like he’s on a ship. Nausea builds in his throat. Must be seasickness. What was he supposed to be doing? 

Kneeling over, Nightwing throws up in the middle of Crime Alley.

* * *

Dick doesn’t want to open his eyes. None of the possibilities are good. 

The sheets are soft, softer than a hospital bed. It smells of alcohol, mixed with the foul stench of animal droppings. 

First guess? The Batcave’s medbay.

The one restraint around his ankle confirms it. Criminals tend to be less… _considerate,_ and Leslie has a not-unfounded hatred for restraints. 

No, only his family would have handcuffed just his ankle to the bedpost. Enough to keep him there if he’s too messed up to pick a simple lock, but not enough to make him panic. 

So now the question is who is with him. He won’t dare to dream of being left alone, not when his head feels like Jason took a sledgehammer to it.

The room is silent, knocking out Steph, Jason, Duke, and Tim. Steph likes to talk to people when they’re unconscious; She says it’s both soothing and, to quote, “the only way I can get some of you to fucking listen.” He can usually hear Jason flipping through the pages of whatever book he’s reading or the quiet noises that escape his shitty headphones that _everyone_ has offered to replace.

Duke likes to pace. A lot. He’ll sometimes get up and pace in the middle of movie night. While they all can silence their footsteps when they want to, only a few of them do it unintentionally. Tim uses his bat-sitting time to get work done, occupied by the comforting click of keys or scratching of a pencil. (Or light snoring. The “splenectomy” did wonders for the boy’s already messed up immune system. Wonders being the “days since Tim had a clear nose” chart in the living room.) 

Out of Dami, Cass, Alfred, Babs, and Bruce, Alfred is the most unlikely, more often than not busy with butler duties. Bruce, Babs, and Damian always call someone out when they pretend to sleep, usually with very similar dry tones or cutting sarcasm. 

That just leaves Cass, which is the best he could have hoped for. While he has no chance of escaping a very angry lecture, she at least always brings her iPad so they can huddle in bed and watch movies. 

Opening his eyes, Dick’s greeting gets replaced with a groan as Jason’s lips tug into a smirk. _Fuck,_ Jason is the worst option out of the bunch. Usually, waking up with Jason at his bedside means an hour spent ignoring jabs before being rescued by the next shift, but he put effort into luring Dick into a false sense of security. Jason is _pissed._

“How long was I out?” he croaks. His throat feels like he’s been running through a desert. Reaching over, his hands get smacked half-way to the water at his bedside. Jason picks up the glass, holding the straw to his lips and murmuring about small sips. 

The older leans back into his chair, setting down the empty cup. “We’ve been waking you every hour since last night,” Jason states, picking at his fingernails. Dick would prefer shouting to this artificial calm. “First time you’re not acting high out of your mind.” 

“Guess I’m not as thick-skulled as you think,” he laughs. Jason just keeps picking his nails, face impassive. 

“Surgery?” 

“Nah,” Jason says, moving onto his other hand. 

He starts to squirm. You could cut the tension with a knife. “Is everyone okay?” 

“Yep. Just you.” 

“Jason-” 

“Save it, Goldie.” He spits, abruptly standing from his chair. “You’re a hypocrite, you know that?” 

“ _Jas-_ ” 

“Shut up,” Jason growls.

His mouth closes with a click. Even he knows when to back down, as much as he hates getting ordered around by his brother. 

“You got so lucky today, I hope you know that. Imagine, _Dick,_ what would have happened if it was the fucking Joker instead of Mr. Moo-Moo man. No, not even the Joker, practically any other criminal. A group of children could have killed you in the state you were in.”

“That seems like an overreaction,” he protests. He wasn’t _that_ hurt. 

“YOU DIDN’T KNOW WHO _NIGHTWING_ WAS!” Jason yells, and a gasp escapes him as the pounding in his head skyrockets. His hands shoot up to cover his ears and the world turns a soothing black as his eyes clench shut. Noise sensitivity is not gone, good to know. 

After a second, calloused hands cover his, gently tugging his arms down. Opening his eyes reveals Jason standing over him, face softened. 

“I’m sorry,” Jason murmurs, sitting on the edge of the bed. He smooths the wrinkles out of the blanket and Dick is reminded of Bruce. Not that he would ever tell either of them that; They wouldn’t take it very well. “We found you passed out in the middle of one of the worst parts of Gotham. If Oracle hadn’t told us something was wrong-” Jason grips the bed, lips pressing into a thin line. “You scared the hell out of us. You scared the hell out of the _kids_.” 

He leans his head back, staring at the ceiling as he whispers, “I’m sorry.” Dick never meant to scare the kids, but there were already eight deaths and they were too spread out- 

Fingers snap in front of his eyes. “None of that.” When Dick doesn’t move, he sighs. “Dick, we don’t want you to apologize, we want you to change.” 

That gets him to look at his brother. Before he can get a word out Jason holds up a finger, silencing him. “This is the third time this month that you’ve hidden an injury. Even the rest of us Bats aren’t that self-destructive. 

“So, until you can show that you know when to ask for help, you’re no longer allowed to go out in costume by yourself.” 

Dick snorts. “You can’t do that, Jason, I’m an adult.” 

“And we’re your family,” Jason says, raising an eyebrow. “You really think you can win against all of us?” 

“ _All_ of you?” Yeah, Alfred, Babs, Damian, Cass, those make sense. But Steph and Duke? Tim? _Jason and Bruce?_

Jason tilts his head. “What does that mean?” 

He splutters. Shit. “Oh, I uh- I just, well, you know-” 

“No, I do not know,” the older man says, crossing his arms. “Out with it.”

“IguessIjustdidn’treallythinkyoucared,” he spurts, face half pressed into his pillow. He can see Jason’s body stiffen and he cringes. Why did he open his mouth, idiot, idiot, _idiot._

“You _what,_ ” Jason growls, pulling Dick’s shoulder back to reveal his face. 

“Well, I’ve fucked up a lot with everyone and I’m always away-” he starts, avoiding the older's eyes. 

“We’ve all fucked up with each other, we’re a fucked up family,” his brother snaps, causing him to flinch. “And Cass is gone just as much as you, and we all know she’s everyone’s favorite.” Okay, yeah, but Cass is Cass. Just like how Jason is Jason and Damian is Damian and Tim is Tim and Duke is Duke and Steph is Steph. They’re _them._ He’s _Dick._ No one ever seems to get the difference.

“Is this why you hate asking for help, you don’t think anyone would give a shit?” Jason continues, swinging his legs onto the bed so he’s completely facing him. “Dick, I can safely say you’re one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met. Given the opportunity, I wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in your arm. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re my little brother. That you’re the kids’ big brother, practically Damian’s _dad._ ” 

“Jason-”

“No, no, no, I’m done dealing with your self-depreciative bullshit,” Jason says, pushing him over so the older can lay down. His brother smells like his usual coconut body wash and gunpowder, but there's an undercurrent of Roy’s weird not-citrus cologne and the unique salty-flowery scent that’s common on Kori’s home planet. He’ll mention it to the others, they haven’t stuck their noses in Jason’s business in a while. 

Jason’s voice is quieter, a whisper above his ear as he wraps an arm around Dick. “Breath a word of this to anyone and I’ll follow through with the bullet threat.” 

He just turns on his side, face burrowing into soft leather. A hesitant hand starts brushing through his hair, soothing his headache even more than the medicine. This... this reminds him of his mother, of nights spent huddled together in their trailer or under the stars. The memories comforted him enough to let his eyes close once more.

**Author's Note:**

> My notes for this fic were just:  
> Younger Batkids: *tries to hide an injury*  
> Dick: No ❤️️  
> Dick: *tries to hide an injury*  
> Jason: I think the /fuck/ not


End file.
